GAME INFO

SOFTWARE

You could be forgiven for thinking you were playing noughts and crosses with Barcrest’s Action Bank. Old school symbols star in this 5-reel slot, with Xs and Os in plentiful supply.

Classic slots are Barcrest’s stock in trade; after all, they were developing slots back when there was no such thing as classic: they were just called slots or more commonly referred to as fruit machines. While the developer has since moved with the times and released a string of more contemporary games, they’re clearly still at their most comfortable when working with the slots of their and their audience’s youth. Aside from Xs and Os, red 7s are the other symbol you’ll be seeing a lot of once the reels start to roll.

Scatters and wilds are the game’s other symbols of note; there are no playing cards values to clutter up the paylines in Action Bank. Instead, it’s all about the Xs, Os, 7s and the occasional BAR thrown in for good measure. The name of the slot, displayed above the reels in its default position, lights up in red once the game begins. As you’ve probably deduced from its name, the aim of Action Bank is to crack the safe and access the riches locked therein.

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Modest Controls

Barcrest are fond of making their playing controls oversized and sited either side of the reels, but in Action Bank they’ve elected to keep things on a much more modest scale. Following the layout of a traditional fruit machine, every button of note is sited below the reels, starting with the stake per line, which can be adjusted from 0.01 all the way up to 20 using the red and green arrows. With 20 paylines in play, that works out at a maximum stake per spin of 400.

There’s no autospin with this game, which just leaves the paytable button – that’ll be the large orange button marked HELP then. If you’re wanting to mute the audio – not that there’s much by way of a soundtrack – the controls are situated in the top right of the screen alongside a question mark icon that provides a text-only playing guide.

Gameplay

As you’d expect of an old school slot, the reels are where the action takes place. Sure, there’s a feature game, but your fortune will be won or lost on the 5 reels and 20 paylines that make up Action Bank. 3, 4 or 5 of a kind wins are awarded, with the value of any wins generated supplied as a multiplier of your stake. For X’s, this starts at 5x for 3 in a line, rising to 10x for 4 and 50x for 5. At the top end of the scale, red 7s apply a multiplier of 20x, 100x and 500x respectively.

It doesn’t require a mathematics degree to appreciate that a 500x multiplier is going to send you home with a smile smeared across your face and a bank account that’s filled to the brim with gambling monies. To achieve these 3, 4 and 5 of a kind wins, wild will often prove to be your friend, turning just misses into guaranteed payouts. A mischievous looking jester assumes the role of wild, substituting for all symbols except for scatter. Scatter resembles a golden bank vault; 5 of these in view will activate free spins, where you’ll be awarded anywhere from 5 to 5 free spins.

Features

Big Bank Bonus is the game’s primary feature, which comes bearing 3 possible multipliers: diamond, ruby and sapphire. To achieve the Big Bank Bonus, you’ll need to have notched up those all-important scatters, and to achieve that you’ll be praying for as many O’s as possible to surface during free spins. That’s because each O will be transformed into its corresponding shape – namely one of the vault scatter symbols.

Land the Big Bank Bonus and either 4 diamonds, 5 rubies or 6 sapphires will be shuffled and hidden behind a series of silver vault doors. Pick a door to reveal a hidden gem. The most you can win from this game is 500x your total stake.

Pocket a Gem

It’s not the prettiest slot you’ll ever play, but once the free spins kick in, Action Bank suddenly becomes a much more enticing proposition. Can you pick the right vault door and pocket the precious gem?